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Cold Stone Creamery: Heavenly Ice Cream in Mall of Arabia

Published On:
10/09/2012

Simply put; we love ice cream. But the best way to introduce this review is to show you the same video that had us running to Cold Stone Creamery in 6th of October City’s Mall of Arabia.

The very first Cold Stone Creamery shop opened back in 1998 in Arizona by husband-and-wife ice cream enthusiasts, Donald and Suzan Sutherland. Years later, the Cold Stone Creamery name has reached the streets of Cairo – and we couldn’t be happier.

The name might have you wondering what exactly it means, but once you step inside the shop, you’ll get it; as is customary practice with these specialist American ice cream vendors, your ice cream is prepared on a cold slab of stone. The creation of your cone or cup of ice cream is a little different here. You’ll find a large range of different ice creams and toppings at your mercy, some of which go into creating Cold Stone Creamery’s signature flavours.

You’ll start first by choosing the type of ice cream you want and the canvas from which you will eat it – cone or plastic cup. The cup sizes come in ‘Like It’ (small), ‘Love It’ (medium) and ‘Gotta Have It’ (Large). At this point, one of the shop’s staff will grab a ball of ice cream to your desired size and place it on the cold stone work space, before creating a small cavity in the ball in which your additives are introduced – nuts, dried fruits, brownie pieces, etc. The ingredients are then meshed expertly into one.

From the signature creations on the menu, we tried the Founder’s Favourite (medium, 28LE); pecan ice cream with brownie pieces, fudge and caramel sauce in a cone (5LE extra). We also tried the Mint Mint Chocolate Chip (medium, 28LE), which consisted of mint ice cream, fudge, chocolate chips and brownie pieces. The combinations are extraordinary; we’ve never quite had ice cream as unique as this. The textures are great, everything tastes fresh and it never feels sickly sweet. The sizes are very generous, too; a medium is more than filling.

One of the more peculiar parts of the experience is the staff’s sudden break into ice cream-related songs, which is triggered by ordering certain ice creams. It had us rolling around with laughter – the staff’s enthusiasm is commendable.

It doesn’t just stop at ice cream, though. Cold Stone Creamery also offers milkshakes and ice cream cakes, as well as a self-serve frozen yoghurt machine (15 piaster per 1 gram). The cakes come in two sizes, to serve either eight or fourteen people.

As ice cream fiends, this is not a visit that we’ll quickly forget. Bravo Cold Stone Creamery, bravo.

Mall of Arabia, (Opposite the Cinema), Juhayna Square, 6th of October City

Like so many fads in Cairo, frozen yoghurt came, saw and conquered the minds, hearts and sweet-teeth of many a Cairene. Egyptians love all things sweet – regardless of what time of the year it is – and frozen yoghurt is no different, with several fro-yo specialists enjoying popularity across the city, mostly in malls. Several have even used the healthy snacking angle, while the endless customisation options only sweeten the deal. This is the case for one of the newer ones in town, Sweet Frog. In a matter of five years, the American chain has gone on to settle into almost 350 locations – from the UK, to South Korea, to the Dominican Republic, to 6th of October City's Mall of Arabia. As is the case with other frozen yoghurt joints, you're left to your own self-serving devices; pick an appropriatey-sized cup, fill it with the desired flavour of yoghurt, then go nuts at the toppings station. Said toppings station affords you a fittingly eclectic range of munchables, including cereals, nuts, chocolates, gummy sweets – the list goes on. One of the first things Cairo's fro-yo fiends will notice is that Sweet Frog's cup sizes just make more sense; unlike other stores, the smallest cup isn't insultingly small and the largest isn't needlessly big. Either way, you are master of your own destiny when it comes to pricing as it's all done by weight. But let's get to the important parts – the creation and consumption of frozen yoghurt. We decided to see if we really could put together a healthy snack, growing for the low-fat option, with muesli with chocolate and coconut (160gm/28LE) – that's pretty healthy, right? Unfortunately, the low-fat yoghurt was also low on flavour, having little-to-no discernible taste. Luckily the toppings added the required flavour, but the whole creation lacked the creaminess and subtle sourness of yoghurt. Deciding to get a little more experimental with our next fro-yo, we went for plain yoghurt and water melon yoghurt together in one cup – yeah, we like to live on the edge – as well as a coffee and chocolate (155gm/26LE). combo, the latter of which were outstanding, especially in tandem, with the sweetness of the chocolate working well the slight bitterness of the coffee The water melon, meanwhile, was excellent, too, so much so that we would recommend trying it by itself. Generally, at the time of our visit, the toppings station was a little bare in the sweets and chocolate department, but everything in the fruit section was glowing with a noticeable freshness. All in all, it's difficult to weigh up these kinds of places next to each other, because few of them really do anything different and rely on being weirder and wackier when it comes to the toppings. What Sweet Frog does deviate with to a certain extent, is the types of fro-yo offered – just to reiterate, the water melon is fantastic.

Having introduced the Thai style ice cream rolls to Cairo in 2014, Frozzy Twist opened their very first branch at Nasr City was huge success. Just like cupcakes, waffles and crepes, it was no surprise that the concept went on to be copied by so many without adding anything different.

Two years on, Frozzy Twist has opened a Mohandiseen branch on Ahmed Oraby Street – and it was very impressive at the time of our visit. Unlike their usual dark coloured interior, this branch is actually very cheerful, using light pink, green, blue and yellow bricks on the walls, as well as lighting that brings out all of these colours.

From milkshakes and molten chocolate cakes, to cheesecake and endless ice cream roll flavours, the variety has definitely got bigger since our last visit. However, we kept it simple by ordering a medium sized cashew ice cream roll (20LE).

Starting with the cashew, the ice cream attendant (what do you call these guys?) poured some of the ice cream mixture on a freezing cold surface with a handful of salted cashew, which he then smashed using some kind of a trowel until it formed a very thin rectangle-shaped layer. He then slid the trowel from the beginning to the end to form small ice cream rolls.

The sweetness of the ice cream mixture was spot-on and the cashew was perfectly distributed, which ensured the presence of its salty and nutty flavours in almost every single spoon. However, the texture was a bit dense which made it hard to eat with the plastic spoons provided – so much so that we broke two spoons.

We also tried a medium-sized Basbousa ice cream roll (13LE) – yes, basbousa ice cream is a thing. The ice cream and basbousa were merged to create a fantastic chewy, stickycombo, full of mini bits of basbousa. It’s like you’re almost eating cold basbousa with cream, but we have to say that it was a little bit too sweet.

Even though we believe that nothing can beat a simple, classic scoop of ice cream, the best word to describe our visit to Frozzy Twist is ‘fun’. With friendly staff, a great variety of desserts and a cheerful interior, we can easily say that this is their best branch yet!